musings and meditations from an ordinary husband, father, and pastor seeking to follow Christ

salvation from the power of sin (sermon redux)

Salvation is being rescued from the POWER of sin. And that happens right now. See, when a person is saved, they have been saved from the penalty of sin, they will be saved one day from the presence of sin, and they are being saved, right now, from the power of sin. Let me explain this because it can be confusing.

See, there’s a dilemma – when God saves us from the penalty of sin so that we can go to heaven, he doesn’t go on and take us to heaven. He leaves us in this world. And the problem is that there are a whole lot of people around you and I that don’t love Jesus and don’t want to live for him and don’t want you to either. And the Bible teaches as well that Satan has a lot of influence in this world and he uses that influence, through others to try to get you not to live for Jesus either. And the Bible also teaches that even though you may be a genuine, heartfelt follower of Christ, you still live in a fallen body, with what the Bible calls “your flesh” and that flesh tries to get you to sin against God. See, God doesn’t take you to heaven. He leaves you here in a very fallen world for all kinds of reasons.

But the good news is that the Bible also teaches us that when you are saved God has made you new, recreated you; it’s the new birth or being born-again. It means that he has given you a new heart (desires or new appetites – you want the things of God) and a new mind (your thinking changes – you don’t think like the world but more like God or Scripture) and new priorities or values (what’s important to God becomes important to you) and that God’s Spirit lives in you to work in you and help you.

So, you’ve got all this against you, trying to get you to not live for Jesus, and you’ve all this for you, trying to get you to live for Jesus, so that means there is a fight, raging inside of you. But, because of God living in you, because you are his child, because you are united with Jesus, God gives you the power to fight and win.

Romans 6 tells us [6:1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. [12] Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. [13] Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. [14] For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Do you hear that? Let that settle on you? In Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin, nor shall sin have dominion over you. That does not mean you are sinless or will be sinless in this life. It does mean that you don’t have to sin. It does mean that you are his child and are alive in Christ and God has given you what you need to overcome sin. You don’t have to live in sin.

It does mean that if you are in sin and love it, and have no plans to change it, and you are not troubled or sorrowful about it (not in a Godly way), then you are probably not born again, and have truly not trusted in Jesus. It does means that if you have no hunger for God, no real desire to know him, and you have no real desire or commitment or actions to see his will done, no real commitment to his body, the church, … then you probably don’t have a new heart and have not truly repented of your sin and trusted Jesus as your Savior.